


The Life Cycle of Turtles and Mermaids

by tinamachina



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinamachina/pseuds/tinamachina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse into Edea's early childhood, when she learned important lessons in life, death and magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life Cycle of Turtles and Mermaids

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrangerenters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/gifts).



> For the following prompt: "Edea Kramer. I would love any sort of origin/pre-game story centered around Edea. The struggles she goes through after becoming a sorceress at such a young age - where was she living when this happened? Did she face any social stigma? Did she have to keep it secret? What was her family situation? And then of course there's her knight - how do she and Cid meet? (Has he always worn sweater vests?!) When/how does she tell him what she is? How does he react at first? An orphanage years story is fine too - setting up the orphanage/living with the children/receiving Ultimecia's powers/creating the Gardens and the White SeeD ship. Or bring it right up to just before the game starts with Ultimecia possessing her. Pretty much any story about Edea (or Edea/Cid) you can tell me set before the game is welcome. Any discussion of magic (how it manifests, how it can be controlled/or not controlled, magic meta) is extremely welcome."

Five-year-old Edea was a normal little girl.

She and her parents lived in an old stone house, the lone surviving building from a long-lost coastal city.  From her window, little Edea loved to watch the waves roll onto the beach.

She would study the waves with her father’s spyglass, carefully looking for whatever might emerge from the foamy surf.  Most of the time, it was a crab looking for its lunch.  Other times, it was a piece of driftwood that had broken off from a long-sunken ship.  One night, under a full moon, Edea spotted the shadow of a sea turtle laying her eggs on the beach.  Then Edea watched it slowly crawl back into the ocean, leaving her babies to hatch in the sand dunes.  Edea wondered why the mama turtle never came back.  Maybe she got lost? 

“There are many beaches in the world”, Edea’s papa said, and he knew since he sailed all over the world with his maritime postal service.

Edea made notes of where the mama turtle laid her eggs, drawing maps in crayon with the exact location of the nest, so when she and her papa went to play on the beach, they would not accidentally crush the eggs.  She would mark the site with shells and dried-out starfish, so the baby turtles could hatch in peace, and maybe the mama could find them again.

Sea turtles were fascinating, but what Edea was really looking for on the beach were mermaids.

Her papa always came home with little toys and dolls from foreign ports, and lots of books about mermaids, from fairy tales to “scientific” books on how to spot evidence of mer-folk on the beach.  For example, bits of dried coral were their eating utensils, and empty shells were used to adorn their long, flowing hair.  Little black, square-shaped “mermaid’s purses” were the eggs from which baby mermaids hatched, then discarded and left to dry up on the sand. 

One the nights when he was home from deliveries, Papa read to Edea before bed, legends of how the mermaids helped the Light Warriors defeat the evil knight Garland, or how the king of mermaids, Leviathan, rescued the Princess of the Feymarch.

Edea’s mama was more pragmatic and taught Edea more practical things, like arithmetic and tending vegetables and predicting tides by the phase of the moon.  She did not always approve of papa’s fish-folk stories.  She felt that it was all “filling her head with lies”.

But Edea’s papa shrugged, gently arguing, “Children are only children for such a short time.  Innocence doesn’t last.”

One night, while Edea was tucked in bed, a pop of light flashed through her window.  It woke Edea, and the little girl quickly scrambled for her papa’s spyglass in the dark.  She sat up on the bed, looking out the window, searching the beach outside…

Then, from the spyglass, Edea saw something, or someone.  It looked like a lady.  She had long hair.  She crawled across the sand, dragging what looked like a long, twisted tail behind her--a mermaid, at last!

Mama and Papa were sound asleep in the next room, and Edea took great care not to wake them as she silently slipped out of bed and into a pair of boots.  She carefully tip-toed across the wooden floor, crept through the kitchen and very slowly opened the back door, trying not to make it creak. 

It was the middle of the night.  Papa’s oil lanterns were too heavy for Edea to carry, but the moon was full and bright.  The beach seemed to glow under the moonlight.  Edea skipped down the pathway to the beach.  She had to be quick to catch her, but Edea tried not to run too fast or else trip over a rock and scare away the mermaid. 

The mermaid was lying over one of the sea turtle’s nests.  To Edea’s horror, the mermaid was brushing away the seashell markers and digging into the sand.

Edea was about to shout, “STOP!  DON’T HURT THE BABIES!”  But before Edea could say a word, she saw sparks fly up from the nest.  It looked like a little fountain of light, and the mermaid was drawing the little sparks into her hand.

Edea carefully stepped toward the mermaid, “What are you doing?”

The mermaid looked up at Edea, startled.  She had an older face, older than Mama’s. She had strange, colorful markings around her cheeks and eyes, like the carnival masks that Papa brought home, but her make-up looked smeared and runny from the sea water.  Her hair was twisted around clumps of shells and animal claws. 

The mermaid was in pain, but she did not seem afraid or angry.  Her face softened at the sight of the little girl, and with a shaky, raised hand, invited Edea closer, “What is your name, child?”

“Edea.”   The little girl sat beside her.  “Are you really a mermaid?”

The lady laughed, coughing wetly.  “No, my dear,” she said gently, and the lady tugged at her skirts and showed that she did indeed have feet, although her legs and ankles were bent and twisted in weird angles.

“I can get bandanas!”  Edea exclaimed.  “We found a birdie with a broken wing and Papa tied a bandana around the wing and we made a bed from a shoebox until…”

“No, my dear,” the lady gently interrupted.  “I know other ways.”  The lady hesitated, taking a deep breath.  “Do you know of the Great Sorceress Hyne?”

Edea nodded.  Papa told her stories of a powerful witch who lived long, long ago.  Mama thought that Edea was way too young for those kinds of stories.

“She is the mother of my kind,” the lady explained, “To all sorceresses.” 

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”   Edea asked.

The wounded lady looked a little taken aback, but she laughed, although it sounded a bit like crying.  “I hope I was a ‘good witch’.  Some sorceresses aren’t.  They never learned how to use magic properly.  Not just making spells, but how to use their gift for the greater good.  Instead, some use the gift to hurt others, because they, themselves, have been hurt.  They had no one to love them, teach them.”  The sorceress looked to Edea, “Do you have a family?”

“Yeah,” Edea nodded.  “And my mama and papa love me very much and I love them!”

“Good,” the sorceress sighed.  “That’s very good.”  The sorceress reached back to the turtle nest, and to the little spring of light.

“Don’t hurt the babies!”  Edea shouted. 

The sorceress looked back up at Edea, “Do not worry, I won’t.  They are well.”  The sorceress held one little spark in her hand, “This is Cure, the magic of life.  Perhaps because the sea turtle laid her eggs here, life magic sprung forth from this spot.  Or perhaps the sea turtle knew that life magic already flowed here?  Hold out your hand.”

Edea hesitated.  Her mama warned her against talking to strangers, and taking little balls of light from strangers would have made Mama very unhappy.

“It is alright.  I will not hurt you,” the sorceress held out the tiny spark of Cure, and Edea nervously opened her palm outward.  The sorceress dropped the Cure into Edea’ hand and it felt warm and tingly in her tiny palm.  It felt like when Edea would dig up sand crabs, and when their little legs and claws would try to dig into Edea’s palm.  It tickled, yet this little pearl of light was more than a tickle.  It felt like something familiar, like a puzzle piece that Edea never knew was missing just fit into place somewhere in her mind.

Edea knew what to do with the little magic piece away.  She gently planted it back into the sand, just over the baby turtles’ nest, whispering “Cure.”

The nest pulsed with one blue flash from beneath the sand.  Then, the nest stirred, and tiny little flippers and tiny little heads broke free from the sand.  The baby turtles began to crawl away, many creeping toward the ocean waves, and a couple skittering the wrong way into the grassy dunes.

The sorceress seemed very pleased, “You have the gift, my child.”

Edea grabbed a baby turtle, pulling it from the grass and guiding it toward the ocean.  Others also seemed to get a little lost.

“No, wrong way!  Go that way!”  Edea shouted after them, pointing to the ocean.

“Do not worry,” the sorceress held Edea’s hand.  “They will find their way.”  And then the sorceress seemed to get very sleepy, laying her head down onto the sand.

“Are you okay?”  Edea asked.

“No, my child,” the sorceress’ whisper became increasingly hoarse.  “The Cure magic is not enough.  I am fading away from this world.”

Edea felt a lump form in her throat and tears well in her eyes, “No!  NO!  You can’t go away!  Don’t go away!” 

The sorceress held Edea’s cheek in her hand, swiping a tear from her eye with her thumb, “Do not be afraid, my child.  Our bodies crumble away, but we sorceresses can never disappear from the world.  Our energy passes from one sorceress to another, so that our magic can never die, and in a way, we can never die.  Hyne lives on through us.”

“I won’t let you die,” Edea squeaked through her sobs, wiping away more tears.

“I know, my child,” the sorceress closed her eyes.  “I believe in you.”  The sorceress then took Edea’s hand, and chanted something in a funny language. 

Then, Edea watched in wonder as a massive gush of light sprung forth from the dying sorceress.  It was bigger than the little fountain of Cure from the turtle nest.  It was more intense than the little tickle in Edea’s hand.  It was like a wave crashing over her.  Her whole body tingled.  It felt like fireworks popping in her brain, and Edea could hear her mama and papa screaming…

 

Everything changed after that night. 

Her parents took Edea to lots of doctors.  They all said that Edea was perfectly healthy and she could lead a completely normal life.  Yet, Edea heard the doctor whisper to her mama and papa, when they were outside of the exam room, about things that a five-year-old was probably not supposed to know.

There were new rules.  No magic without Mama and Papa nearby, whether in the garden or in the house or on the beach.  No talking to strangers without Mama and Papa nearby.

Mama told Edea about what really happened to the town.  It was a sorceress who went bad, who did not have anyone to tell her how to be good or how to use her powers responsibly.  But that would never happen to Edea because Edea was a good girl and had a mama and papa who loved her. 

Mama and Papa told Edea every day that they loved her no matter what and they would never, ever let anything bad happen to her.  But sometimes they seemed nervous around her, almost afraid of her. Like the time that Edea tried to light Papa’s lantern and accidentally shattered it, almost burning the kitchen down.  Edea was very, very sorry and cried but Mama and Papa forgave her.  But she was never to play with Fire magic until she was older.

They did not tell her what happened to the lady on the beach.

Edea stopped looking for mermaids.  Her papa brought home every book on sorceresses that he could find.  Her mama seemed to fret over every little move that Edea made. 

But Edea was a good girl.  She helped Mama clean house and read a book every day and used Cure to grow the vegetables bigger.

Edea was a good sorceress, but even magic had its limits.  She could not save her papa’s ship from sinking when she was twelve, or her mama from wasting away from cancer when Edea was seventeen.

She was an orphan, and she knew that there were other orphans out there.  She opened her home to the other lost babies, babies that had been left behind on other shores.

The toys and dolls and books that had been bundled away after her papa died once again littered every room in the house.  Edea took the children to the beach to search for seashells and heal injured birds and respect the ocean.

Edea did have a normal life.  She met a traveling schoolteacher, a nice young man in a sweater vest who delivered books and lessons to the children.  He asked her to marry him and she said yes, and they raised lots of kids in their little house by the sea.

But the little stone house was just not big enough anymore, not big enough to hold all the lost children of the world, and there were more and more orphans every year.  Edea and her husband talked about building a school, and they built three.

The world was becoming darker and more dangerous.  There was a bad sorceress out there causing trouble, starting a war.  Edea needed to leave her little house behind; to leave her children to the care of others before she became that “bad witch” her mama and the lady on the beach warned her about.

Edea began to understand why the mother turtle left her babies behind on the beach.  They were not just eggs, but seeds that needed to grow strong and bloom without her.  And in Edea’s darkest hour, her SeeDs would leave the safety of their Gardens to save her and the world.

When the crisis was over, Edea could say that she was a “good witch”, and a good woman, with a family who loved her.  She hoped that Hyne and that nameless sorceress, Edea’s “mermaid”, would be proud.


End file.
